Skin Contamination

["Ronald Frick" <RFRICK@gammacorp.com>]

I am working on a training session for handling personnel who are potentially contaminated with radioactive material, and have been trying to develop some worst case scenarios for different types of materials.  The dose rate to the skin may be calculated if the activity per area is known, but is there any assumption which can be made as to the potential contamination per sqcm if the concentration of the isotope being handled is known?  For example: a tech is handling a dose of liquid NaI, concentration 5 mCi/ml.  If some of the liquid spills onto the skin, what is a reasonable maximum uCi/sqcm which can be assumed?  Could you assume that 1 ml of liquid would be spread over a 10 sqcm area?

Please respond to

Ron Frick
rfrick@gammacorp.com